Rechargeable Batteries / Cordless Drill


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Old 06-04-18, 04:43 AM
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Rechargeable Batteries / Cordless Drill

Have a Mastercraft Cordless Drill, NiCd 14.4V Rechargeable Batteries ... The Drill is 10 yrs old now , One Battery quit holding a Charge last fall.. Now the other one is showing signs of loosing it's charge to quickly.. Is there some such source for Replacement Batteries , not necessarily same brand but a Replacement Battery(s) ?? Cheers Thanks
 
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Old 06-04-18, 04:48 AM
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If you can't find them by searching the Internet you might be out of luck since that's not a major brand. If you can't find new replacements you can purchase new cells and rebuild your existing packs.
 
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Old 06-04-18, 09:47 AM
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Like Pilot Dane says, you probably can cut or prise it apart and replace the individual cells. Requires replacement NiCad cells and some soldering skill. I think the most of them use generic cells, most of which can be found online somewhere.

I've had good success with 'shocking' dead rechargeables back to life. I have some Ryobi cordless tools and those NiCad batteries all tend to go dead over the winter. I searched the Interweb and found a tip that they could be 'shocked' back in to use by repeatedly unplugging/re-plugging the charger from the wall. It doesn't work by repeatedly plugging in and removing the battery from the charger, you have to repeatedly energize and de-energize the charger instead.

However, my first Ryobi charger died in the midst of shocking four batteries back to life. It could be it was just its time and what I was doing with it at the time had nothing to do with it, but I suspect I overheated it. However, when mine died I was plugging/re-plugging as fast as possible, 3-4 times a second, which I now think was a mistake. What I've been doing since, and what I think takes effect in fewer 'cycles,' is if you pause for a fraction of a second before re-plugging to let the circuitry in the charger more fully discharge. I found a used replacement charger and haven't managed to kill it yet, but I'm still getting a respectable amount of life from four batteries that are at least 10 years old.

That's a regular spring thing for me, shocking all those NiCads back to life, and it has yet to fail to restore some measure of usability to them. And they work pretty well for the months when I use them regularly, only to go dead again over the following winter.

And I recently had the same experience with the Li-ion battery in Casio pocket camera that's better than 15 years old. My SLR broke (because I dropped it) and I needed the old pocket camera to work again but I didn't want to buy a new battery. The problem was, the old battery hadn't been on a charger in several years and it was dead as a hammer. Again I searched the Interwebs and found still another tip that that particular battery could be shocked back to life with a 9v transistor battery, the terminals on which happened to be spaced exactly right to make contact with the terminals on the Casio battery. So I borrowed the battery from the smoke alarm and touched its terminals very briefly to the contacts on the battery, + to + and minus to minus. And danged if it didn't work. Just like the Ryobi NiCads, at first it only takes a light charge, but drain and recharge it three or four times and it takes a pretty substantial charge.

All of which left me wondering how many other rechargable battery types this might be effective on.
 
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Old 06-04-18, 10:40 AM
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I've shocked a few cordless batteries back to life using my 12 volt car battery charger but it's pretty much just a temporary fix.
 
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Old 06-05-18, 09:22 AM
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Canadian Tire who sells Mastercraft often has obsolete batteries in their bargain bin.
Troll the stores near you and you may be able to get a bargain.
Modern replacements for your drill at Canadian Tire often go on sale and would probably be as cheap as trying to rebuild your batteries.
 
 

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